“It is very close to what you saw two years ago at Frankfurt,” Porsche CEO Oliver Blume says of the forthcoming production version of 2015’s stunning Mission E Concept.

“It will be exciting but a bit different from the concept,” Blume told CAR Magazineat the Frankfurt Motor Show.

That’s for beholders to gauge once the production version of the Mission E is pictured in 2019, when the model arrives exclusively with electric powertrains. Oliver Blume did, however, make clearer commitments relative to the Mission E that will delight Porschephiles and — perhaps — convert Tesla fans.

Right from launch, the Porsche Mission E — likely a 2020 model year vehicle — will be marketed with a 350 kW charge rate that “will be enough for a 400-kilometer range on an 80 percent charge,” Blume says. That’s 250 miles of range from a 15-minute charge. All of this in a car that Porsche claims accelerates from rest to 60 miles per hour in 3.5 seconds and tops 155 mph, a car Porsche couldn’t have developed “so quickly without the 919” — the automaker’s Le Mans-winning hybrid endurance racer. (Read More…)

Some cars are indellibly linked with the rear wing that sat atop their trunklids. In some cases, the spoilers weren’t mandatory, but in your mind’s eye, you always envision the WRX STI and Countach with large aerodynamic addenda.

Certainly not every edition of the Porsche 911 is fitted with a rear wing. But from ducktails to speed-sensitive units to gigantic struts supporting flat planes, the Porsche 911’s shape has been connected to additional rear bodywork for decades. The faster the 911, the more likely you were to find an extra piece affixed to the “911” above its engine.

But times, they are a-changin’. And in an attempt to mute the 2018 Porsche 911 GT3 for a mature, purist clientele, a new Touring Package deletes the GT3’s fixed rear wing and forces the fitment of a six-speed manual transmission.

“This is not some vision of the distant future,” Honda CEO Takahiro Hachigo says of the Honda Urban EV Concept that debuts at the Frankfurt Motor Show. “A production version of this car will be here in Europe in 2019.”

Be a skeptic if you like. Honda’s recent history is full of pie-in-the-sky small car concepts that never came to production fruition: Remix, Step Bus, IMAS, Puyo, P-Nut, Gear. But there are also Honda concepts that ended up in the real world. The Model X Concept became the Element, the CR-Z Concept became the CR-Z, the SUT Concept arrived as the Ridgeline.

Honda has every intention to introduce the delightfully retro-modern Urban EV, albeit most assuredly without suicide doors, gigantic wheels, a front bench, or the unusually minimalistic interior. Yet if Honda can maintain the silhouette, a blend of early Civic and Mk1 Golf GTI, we’ll begin to wonder whether Honda’s lost decade – in which mistakes were made and costs were cut — is about to produce evidence of a reinvigorated Honda. (Read More…)